The Circuit Cities around me typically only had a handful of people out wandering around the store at any given time, and they mostly just stood around and talked with each other, or sometimes stocked the shelves. Usually the conversations would go something like:
Me: Do you have any IDE to SATA power adapters?
Salesdroid: What?
Me: IDE to SATA power adapters?
Salesdroid: Uhm... is that like a XBox thing or something?
Me: Is there someone who works in this department I could talk to?
Salesdroid: I work in this department.
Me: ok... uhm, do you have any SATA power supplies?
Salesdroid walks me over to the UPS selection.
Salesdroid: Here are our power supplies.
Me: You know what, I think I'll just go look around on my own.
Compounding their sin of higher prices they also had the singularly least helpful (or knowledgeable) staff of just about any store I've ever been to. The selection was also rather poor often missing products from major vendors. They tended to try to cram overpriced and unneeded warranty programs down your throat as well. The final insult however was almost every time I've ever been in a Circuit City some moron would be in the back with the car stereo systems cranked to max volume, the bass knob broken off on 11, and some truly horrid radio station tuned in. Simply stepping in the front door was usually an invitation to permanent hearing damage and a pounding headache for a few hours.
Having said that, allow me to point out that if the universe has a resolution limit, then it is effectively "pixellated". One thing that produces pixellation effects is digitization. Therefore it is possible that the pixellation we observe in the universe is caused because it is digital in nature.
Actually, anytime you record anything it becomes "pixelated", although sometimes other terms are used. The exception of course being when you know the actual formula and inputs used to generate the original in which case you can merely store the formula and inputs and then recreate the original at any point from that.
Take for instance a picture of something (for now assume we're using a traditional film camera and not a digital one). Generally we don't notice because our senses aren't that fine, but even a film camera will cause a certain amount of "pixelation" or to use the more accurate term, grain, to appear in both the negative and the final print. The quality of the image is dependent on how fine the crystal structure of the film used to take the picture is. There's nothing that makes digital information special in this regard, it's merely that the way more traditional analog information is stored and played tends to flatten out artifacts so that they're less noticeable in the reproduction.
As another example take sound recordings. No recording is ever a perfect 100% reproduction of the sounds at the point it was produced. That's not really a problem though, as we don't care about all the sounds, or even most of the sounds, so the lack of them in the final recording does not detract from its purpose. Further quite a bit of the sound we can't even perceive, so even if it was recorded we wouldn't know about it (its beyond the limits of our hearing).
The jaw-dropping part was towards the end of the article:
"we would have directly observed the quantum of time," says Hogan. 'It's the smallest possible interval of time - the Planck length divided by the speed of light.'"
It's going to take me a few days to fully realize what that means, and I studied quantum physics.
First, bear in mind that my physics education isn't much beyond high school level so I may be missing some subtle facet, but that statement makes me think of a Nyquist frequency. It's not so much that there really is a smallest interval of time, just that it's the edge of our ability to measure.
Haven't you heard? They're not evil, they're morally ambiguous. Remember, when picking your corporate overlord, pick the low-evil choice, because if you don't they'll know about it (and where you live... and oh, I see you're doing a search for... my, you really should have that looked at by a professional).
Why do a lot of/.'ers talk about it is not wrong to take music without paying for it because it doesn't deprive the creator (or ip owners) with a "physical" copy?
Actually I don't think I've ever seen someone make that argument. I have seen people saying that copyright infringement isn't stealing because you're not depriving the owner of anything, however it is still illegal as it's copyright infringement.
No the/. crew has as much problem with the WHY and the HOW. BTW, if the RIAA was that flagrant about judges rulings then more judges would be throwing down the gauntlet...they aren't though. So while we may get up in arms apparantly those judges are not...and judges tend to get really annoyed when people do not obey their decrees.
Actually they are rather flagrantly ignoring the spirit of the judges ruling, but not the letter. Simply put the RIAA has pulled up stakes and no longer brings suit in the district the ruling was passed in thereby avoiding any challenge of the ruling. They aren't violating the ruling because it only applies in the district it was issued in, although if it makes it to the Supreme Court that would be another matter. Of course the RIAA knows this and will do everything in their power to prevent a case from going that high, going as far as dropping with prejudice (if need be) any case they think might be headed that way.
On the topic of the "WHY and the HOW", a great many people do not object entirely to the "WHY", but do object to parts of it. The most commonly heard complaint is that the copyright system, originally designed to provide a short term monopoly on a creative work has been bastardized instead into a sort of perpetual monopoly which is clearly against the spirit and intent of copyright which is to encourage new creative works by providing a temporary incentive, while not needlessly depriving the public of a work for a prolonged period of time.
I was under the impression it was utterly impotent in the long run anyway, even if it does more or less bankrupt the odd individual, or squeak out the odd settlement from those that can afford it and just don't want to be bothered to fight.
The MAFIAAs are doing everything they can to rig the system in their favor, but so far it's not looking good for them. It's still too early to call it definitively one way or another, but one things for sure, something is going to need to change one way or another as this sue everyone and their dog approach is definitely not working.
It all comes down to GIGO. The software can only be as perfect as the person using it. Of course, the definition of perfect is also arbitrary and worse still, subjective.
In other words it's a monitoring tool, nothing more. Useful, but also dangerous in the wrong hands. Would be difficult to scrub the data such that it doesn't violate privacy, but still provides enough info to be useful.
It also wouldn't help against distributed C&C bot nets as those by definition don't have any one point of contact, but rather a great deal of contact among all the nodes. Without some sort of deeper inspection at both the data layer, and the application layer although this might catch some of the malware out there (and that does give the idea some merit) it wouldn't catch most, or even I fear much.
Don't even need to break into it, just fool it. If you could convince it that some normal every day activity (say going to google more than twice in an hour) is really a sign of a 0-day attack in progress and get it to lock down network IO, you've just gotten a ready made DDoS. Simply get the system to propagate your false positive to all the nodes (which it would need to do quickly, quietly, and efficiently in order to combat 0-Day threats) and then wait for it to go off. Instant DDoS and you barely even needed to do anything. Best part is if you can make it look like you weren't trying to trick it, then even if the attack eventually gets traced back to you, you can claim you're innocent and the software just flaked on you.
I can picture it now. Volvo ends up completely totaled because it glitches and decides the car is about to crash so it locks the brakes down and the semi behind the Volvo plows into the suddenly stopped car. Most people base their following distance on the conditions of the road ahead of them. On a clear day with good visibility and say one car ahead of you with nothing but straight open road, you're probably going to leave enough space to stop if they start to slow down, but not enough if they suddenly slam on their brakes, which a glitch with this system could easily cause.
Worse still what if this things glitches while you're someplace you really don't want to be stopped on, like train tracks or a bridge. I can see all kinds of ways this could go very wrong, so I'd hope there was at least some form of manual override on this thing.
Late response, but I'd like to point out that the SCIgen project has been around for quite a while (I remember seeing it something like 3 or 4 years ago and even then it wasn't "new"). Someone used the output of that and submitted it to a conference, which is probably not that rare an event, although it does take some balls to follow through with it.
The reason I talked around it, is I was trying to make a point about how copyright has become more complicated recently. Your original post made it sound like it's all very straightforward, which to a certain extent it is (at least now, give the lobbyists a few more years), but compared to what the situation was when copyright was originally created it's massively more complicated. I do agree that the courts need to make some decisions with regards to EULAs, and I really hope they find them to be the bunk that they logically are, but the legal system being the legal system just because something is logically bunk doesn't mean they won't uphold it in court. What we really need to happen is to have a case that hinges on a EULA being upheld (and is perfectly legal otherwise) and have a competent lawyer on the defense (or prosecution is the defense is relying in the EULA, which I admit is unlikely) to stand up and point out the explicit exemption in copyright that allows for installing and running software without violating copyright, and then to point out the a EULA is a contract that's imposed retroactively after a purchase has already occurred. At that point it's basically all out on the table and relies on the Judge not being an utter moron and/or being in the pocket of some corporation.
Computers, or more accurately digital data massively complicates copyright due to the ease with which copies of digital information can be made and distributed. Prior to the widespread adoption of computers copyright violation entailed at the minimum a not insignificant expenditure of time and money in order to acquire the goods necessary to duplicate a work, as well as the effort required to transcribe the protected work. With computers the cost involved has been reduced to fractions of a penny and the time to a matter of seconds. Worse still, the basic nature of computers requires that in order for them to function properly they must duplicate copyrighted data which even if its explicitly exempted from copyright protection still muddies the waters somewhat.
Further complicating matters is the recent rise of the legal fiction that is the EULA which basically tries to claim that you can purchase something (legally at this point it's been sold to you so you own that physical copy and can do with it as you please), but that to actually utilize the thing you just purchased you must then agree to a contract with the supplier after you've already bought the item in question. It's somewhat like as if you purchased a new car, drive it around for a bit, go to refill at the pump and discover a lock on the gas tank that says you need to sign a contract with the manufacturer in order to get the key to unlock the gas tank, and that any attempt to otherwise access the gas tank is a patent violation.
Unless of course I missed the part where people don't get to vote, must work at a state owned business and are not allowed to make most of the important decisions in their day to day life.
You're implying that those things are the primary measurement of freedom, and although they are freedoms in the US, they are not the only freedoms or even necessarily the most important ones. The rest of your comment is fine though, although I would point out that one advantage to giving the rights to the states as opposed to the federal government is that it promotes diversity which is generally a good thing.
Americans believe they are "free" only because they are sold the concept, hook, line, and sinker, by the very few, rich, powerful elite that truly run things behind the scenes. Is it really any wonder why the rest of the world hates us so much? They are all collectively waiting for us to wake the fuck up and realize just how deluded we've all been.
Not that I necessarily agree or disagree, but out of curiosity what exactly is supposed to happen when we "wake the fuck up and realize just how deluded we've all been"? Will that change anything? The annoying tourists that ask stupid questions and make asinine demands will still be just as annoying and stupid, and still just as arrogant in trying to force everyone else to conform to what they want. The US will still be one of the better countries to live in, even if the populace is a little more jaded. Sure it would be nice to reduce the collective ignorance that little bit, as it's good anytime ignorance is reduced, but I don't really think it will make much of a difference one way or another. Everyone will still hate the US, and the US will still be what it is, and we'll continue the doing the same things we always have, just with the slightly bitter knowledge we're not as "free" as we thought we were, but that we're still better off than a lot of people are.
Good. Can't wait. I'm more concerned about pedestrian safety having dodged many potentially fatal encounters. Know not one but two girls whose fathers were killed walking at a light or stop sign, in fact, so I'm quite militant about anything that FORCES people to be morally responsible when they drive.
However, they were ruled unconstitutional in Minnesota precisely because the driver couldn't be recognized. Looks like that can be changed. Great.
Traffic cameras don't "FORCE" anyone to do anything, and in fact they seem to provide nothing more than a steady stream of income to the police for relatively little expenditure. Any pedestrians killed by cars were killed for one of several reasons, none of which have anything to do with traffic cameras. Either the pedestrian, or the driver wasn't paying attention (speed is a minor factor here, assuming the driver or pedestrian saw the vehicle coming the difference of 10 or 20 MPH would not appreciably change the outcome for anything faster than 30 MPH and very few roads have speeds under 30 MPH), the driver misjudged driving conditions (ice, wet roads, etc.), or there was some kind of mechanical failure (bad breaks, bald tires). That's pretty much it, barring a bridge collapsing, or chain reaction involving multiple vehicles (in which case the original crash is attributable to one of the previous issues). The fact is, anytime a pedestrian is near a road irregardless of the speed of the cars on that road, there's a risk involved and it's the responsibility of both the pedestrian and the drivers of the cars to be aware of their surroundings and take whatever precautions are necessary. In the case of pedestrians this means crossing at crosswalks preferably while traffic is stopped at a red light, and otherwise staying the hell off the road and as far from the road as possible. For drivers that means not tailgating, being aware of the condition of the road surface and upcoming road hazards or traffic devices (stop signs, lights, cross-walks, school zones, etc.), and always assuming that the guy in the next car over is a complete and utter moron which more often than not is true.
DLNA isn't downloadable content but the ability to network with a DLNA serving device (like a PC) to play content stored on that device.
http://www.us.playstation.com/PS3/Features/DLNA The Xbox uses a SMB/CIFS scheme from what I've read.
I forgot to mention the PSP based remote play too.
Now while the other consoles may have some of these features, neither has them all.
True enough, although when you get both of them you've got almost all the features (and remember both can be had for less than the cost of the PS3 by itself). The 360 actually networks with Windows Media Center (if you have it), or with a plugin to Windows Media Player, which under the scenes probably does leverage some sort of SMB/CIFS scheme, although I'm not certain about the technical details. It also supports Netflix through live for streaming video, although in that case it's a subscription service and you're limited to whatever the service has available.
All of this shouldn't be taken to mean that I don't like the PS3, I really do, I just think they goofed badly when deciding on the price point and what features they needed or could cut in order to reduce that price point. If I could spare $600 I'd go out and buy one right now (and I was seriously tempted with the release of little big planet), but it's simply not in the budget at the moment.
On the one hand, it's a clear win for "Sony", even if it's a lose for SCEA, as it was arguably the nail in the coffin lid for the HD-DVD format. On the other hand had they opted to axe the Blue-Ray drive and knocked ~$300 off the retail pricetag I think we'd see a much tighter race between the PS3 and 360. With the inclusion of the Blue-Ray drive, and the $600 retail price, Sony has effectively branded the PS3 as a luxury console, and as is common with luxury items its got a much smaller install base. In terms of consoles that also carries with it the extra baggage of being less attractive to developers, which results in fewer exclusive titles, and a lot more poorly implemented ports that don't really take advantage of the full power of the hardware.
Linux could be the hundered of branches of Christianity. However, I like Hinduism. Hinduism has many teachings, and people practise differently. Hinduism also claims Buhhdism as a subsect of Hinduism, so that opens you up to even more variation.
Actually I think that would make Linux Buddhism and Unix Hinduism.
I guess I must have my own cult cause if you follow command 1 I will personally burn you at the stake.
Thou wilst follow thy K&R style guide or be beaten to death with dangling pointers. Always remember to cuddle your else clauses, they get lonely easily.
Yes, you can write horrible unmaintainable code in any language, but that doesn't mean the language should encourage writing bad code. In C++ you really need to work to have good clean code, and it's trivially easy to write utter garbage, this is the exact opposite of the design you want for a good language. C++ was a nice first attempt at an object oriented language using C style syntax, but the goal of making the language syntactically backwards compatible instead of merely allowing it to link with C code turned it into an utter mess.
Yes it's your responsibility to not shoot yourself in the foot, but at the same time the language should not be handing you a gun covered in grease, with a hair trigger, and a barrel that randomly points in some direction.
The problem is, almost all those things you mentioned are also available on the XBox 360, and I'm betting will soon be available on the Wii.
DLNA = Live/Wii Store
Photo, video, music = Dashboard
CD Ripping = Dashboard
Web Browser = Not available on 360, but available on Wii
Audo/video chat = Available on 360, soon to be available on Wii
Built in card slots = Available on Wii, 360 has proprietary memory card and can accept any USB storage medium as well
USB Ports = Both 360 and Wii have USB ports
Backwards compatibility = 360 is mostly backwards compatible (admittedly not as much as the PS3), and Wii can play all or almost all Gamecube games (plus the WiiWare archives for older systems).
Ability to run Linux = Could be done on the 360 as far as I know, although not out of the box, and not without voiding your warranty, not sure about the Wii
You also left out at least one major feature that's unique to the PS3 and a major contributor to the price of the system, the blue-ray player.
So, to summarize what you get for shelling out twice the cost of a 360 and three times the cost of a Wii is... Linux that doesn't void your warrantly, a blue-ray player, and arguably better graphics which most games aren't taking advantage of right now.
The Problem is, if you're not particularly interested in Blue-Ray right now, you could take that same $600 and buy yourself a 360 AND a Wii, have money left over, and only be out a extra Linux box and a Blue-Ray player.
Once you start debating a person motivations for something you move beyond the realm of reasonable and are left with mostly speculation based on whatever evidence is available. This doesn't change the fact however that a number of laws are dependent on determining the motivations involved (E.G. first degree murder versus second degree). Suicidal people are generally rational within their own mind set, however that mindset is itself irrational. The key question then becomes exactly why and how they came to be in that state. Very few people are rational 100% of the time, and in fact someone that was would probably be considered maladjusted in some way.
You're somewhat correct in that there really isn't any such thing as really crazy versus rationally crazy, but there is more or less rational, as well as different kinds of irrationality even without factoring in chemical imbalances and other physiological issues.
The fact that you say this shows you haven't actually experienced this and are making assumptions about the kind of treatment necessary to put scratches on the disk. To be clear on some of the defective models (not all the 360s are affected, depends on which drive you happened to get) something as minor as the vibration caused by the consoles own fan causes enough movement to scratch game disks.
Slashdot Mirror
The Circuit Cities around me typically only had a handful of people out wandering around the store at any given time, and they mostly just stood around and talked with each other, or sometimes stocked the shelves. Usually the conversations would go something like:
Me: Do you have any IDE to SATA power adapters?
Salesdroid: What?
Me: IDE to SATA power adapters?
Salesdroid: Uhm... is that like a XBox thing or something?
Me: Is there someone who works in this department I could talk to?
Salesdroid: I work in this department.
Me: ok... uhm, do you have any SATA power supplies?
Salesdroid walks me over to the UPS selection.
Salesdroid: Here are our power supplies.
Me: You know what, I think I'll just go look around on my own.
Compounding their sin of higher prices they also had the singularly least helpful (or knowledgeable) staff of just about any store I've ever been to. The selection was also rather poor often missing products from major vendors. They tended to try to cram overpriced and unneeded warranty programs down your throat as well. The final insult however was almost every time I've ever been in a Circuit City some moron would be in the back with the car stereo systems cranked to max volume, the bass knob broken off on 11, and some truly horrid radio station tuned in. Simply stepping in the front door was usually an invitation to permanent hearing damage and a pounding headache for a few hours.
Having said that, allow me to point out that if the universe has a resolution limit, then it is effectively "pixellated". One thing that produces pixellation effects is digitization. Therefore it is possible that the pixellation we observe in the universe is caused because it is digital in nature.
Actually, anytime you record anything it becomes "pixelated", although sometimes other terms are used. The exception of course being when you know the actual formula and inputs used to generate the original in which case you can merely store the formula and inputs and then recreate the original at any point from that.
Take for instance a picture of something (for now assume we're using a traditional film camera and not a digital one). Generally we don't notice because our senses aren't that fine, but even a film camera will cause a certain amount of "pixelation" or to use the more accurate term, grain, to appear in both the negative and the final print. The quality of the image is dependent on how fine the crystal structure of the film used to take the picture is. There's nothing that makes digital information special in this regard, it's merely that the way more traditional analog information is stored and played tends to flatten out artifacts so that they're less noticeable in the reproduction.
As another example take sound recordings. No recording is ever a perfect 100% reproduction of the sounds at the point it was produced. That's not really a problem though, as we don't care about all the sounds, or even most of the sounds, so the lack of them in the final recording does not detract from its purpose. Further quite a bit of the sound we can't even perceive, so even if it was recorded we wouldn't know about it (its beyond the limits of our hearing).
The jaw-dropping part was towards the end of the article:
"we would have directly observed the quantum of time," says Hogan. 'It's the smallest possible interval of time - the Planck length divided by the speed of light.'"
It's going to take me a few days to fully realize what that means, and I studied quantum physics.
First, bear in mind that my physics education isn't much beyond high school level so I may be missing some subtle facet, but that statement makes me think of a Nyquist frequency. It's not so much that there really is a smallest interval of time, just that it's the edge of our ability to measure.
Haven't you heard? They're not evil, they're morally ambiguous. Remember, when picking your corporate overlord, pick the low-evil choice, because if you don't they'll know about it (and where you live... and oh, I see you're doing a search for... my, you really should have that looked at by a professional).
Why do a lot of /.'ers talk about it is not wrong to take music without paying for it because it doesn't deprive the creator (or ip owners) with a "physical" copy?
Actually I don't think I've ever seen someone make that argument. I have seen people saying that copyright infringement isn't stealing because you're not depriving the owner of anything, however it is still illegal as it's copyright infringement.
No the /. crew has as much problem with the WHY and the HOW. BTW, if the RIAA was that flagrant about judges rulings then more judges would be throwing down the gauntlet...they aren't though. So while we may get up in arms apparantly those judges are not...and judges tend to get really annoyed when people do not obey their decrees.
Actually they are rather flagrantly ignoring the spirit of the judges ruling, but not the letter. Simply put the RIAA has pulled up stakes and no longer brings suit in the district the ruling was passed in thereby avoiding any challenge of the ruling. They aren't violating the ruling because it only applies in the district it was issued in, although if it makes it to the Supreme Court that would be another matter. Of course the RIAA knows this and will do everything in their power to prevent a case from going that high, going as far as dropping with prejudice (if need be) any case they think might be headed that way.
On the topic of the "WHY and the HOW", a great many people do not object entirely to the "WHY", but do object to parts of it. The most commonly heard complaint is that the copyright system, originally designed to provide a short term monopoly on a creative work has been bastardized instead into a sort of perpetual monopoly which is clearly against the spirit and intent of copyright which is to encourage new creative works by providing a temporary incentive, while not needlessly depriving the public of a work for a prolonged period of time.
I was under the impression it was utterly impotent in the long run anyway, even if it does more or less bankrupt the odd individual, or squeak out the odd settlement from those that can afford it and just don't want to be bothered to fight.
The MAFIAAs are doing everything they can to rig the system in their favor, but so far it's not looking good for them. It's still too early to call it definitively one way or another, but one things for sure, something is going to need to change one way or another as this sue everyone and their dog approach is definitely not working.
It all comes down to GIGO. The software can only be as perfect as the person using it. Of course, the definition of perfect is also arbitrary and worse still, subjective.
In other words it's a monitoring tool, nothing more. Useful, but also dangerous in the wrong hands. Would be difficult to scrub the data such that it doesn't violate privacy, but still provides enough info to be useful.
It also wouldn't help against distributed C&C bot nets as those by definition don't have any one point of contact, but rather a great deal of contact among all the nodes. Without some sort of deeper inspection at both the data layer, and the application layer although this might catch some of the malware out there (and that does give the idea some merit) it wouldn't catch most, or even I fear much.
Don't even need to break into it, just fool it. If you could convince it that some normal every day activity (say going to google more than twice in an hour) is really a sign of a 0-day attack in progress and get it to lock down network IO, you've just gotten a ready made DDoS. Simply get the system to propagate your false positive to all the nodes (which it would need to do quickly, quietly, and efficiently in order to combat 0-Day threats) and then wait for it to go off. Instant DDoS and you barely even needed to do anything. Best part is if you can make it look like you weren't trying to trick it, then even if the attack eventually gets traced back to you, you can claim you're innocent and the software just flaked on you.
I can picture it now. Volvo ends up completely totaled because it glitches and decides the car is about to crash so it locks the brakes down and the semi behind the Volvo plows into the suddenly stopped car. Most people base their following distance on the conditions of the road ahead of them. On a clear day with good visibility and say one car ahead of you with nothing but straight open road, you're probably going to leave enough space to stop if they start to slow down, but not enough if they suddenly slam on their brakes, which a glitch with this system could easily cause.
Worse still what if this things glitches while you're someplace you really don't want to be stopped on, like train tracks or a bridge. I can see all kinds of ways this could go very wrong, so I'd hope there was at least some form of manual override on this thing.
Late response, but I'd like to point out that the SCIgen project has been around for quite a while (I remember seeing it something like 3 or 4 years ago and even then it wasn't "new"). Someone used the output of that and submitted it to a conference, which is probably not that rare an event, although it does take some balls to follow through with it.
The reason I talked around it, is I was trying to make a point about how copyright has become more complicated recently. Your original post made it sound like it's all very straightforward, which to a certain extent it is (at least now, give the lobbyists a few more years), but compared to what the situation was when copyright was originally created it's massively more complicated. I do agree that the courts need to make some decisions with regards to EULAs, and I really hope they find them to be the bunk that they logically are, but the legal system being the legal system just because something is logically bunk doesn't mean they won't uphold it in court. What we really need to happen is to have a case that hinges on a EULA being upheld (and is perfectly legal otherwise) and have a competent lawyer on the defense (or prosecution is the defense is relying in the EULA, which I admit is unlikely) to stand up and point out the explicit exemption in copyright that allows for installing and running software without violating copyright, and then to point out the a EULA is a contract that's imposed retroactively after a purchase has already occurred. At that point it's basically all out on the table and relies on the Judge not being an utter moron and/or being in the pocket of some corporation.
Computers, or more accurately digital data massively complicates copyright due to the ease with which copies of digital information can be made and distributed. Prior to the widespread adoption of computers copyright violation entailed at the minimum a not insignificant expenditure of time and money in order to acquire the goods necessary to duplicate a work, as well as the effort required to transcribe the protected work. With computers the cost involved has been reduced to fractions of a penny and the time to a matter of seconds. Worse still, the basic nature of computers requires that in order for them to function properly they must duplicate copyrighted data which even if its explicitly exempted from copyright protection still muddies the waters somewhat.
Further complicating matters is the recent rise of the legal fiction that is the EULA which basically tries to claim that you can purchase something (legally at this point it's been sold to you so you own that physical copy and can do with it as you please), but that to actually utilize the thing you just purchased you must then agree to a contract with the supplier after you've already bought the item in question. It's somewhat like as if you purchased a new car, drive it around for a bit, go to refill at the pump and discover a lock on the gas tank that says you need to sign a contract with the manufacturer in order to get the key to unlock the gas tank, and that any attempt to otherwise access the gas tank is a patent violation.
Unless of course I missed the part where people don't get to vote, must work at a state owned business and are not allowed to make most of the important decisions in their day to day life.
You're implying that those things are the primary measurement of freedom, and although they are freedoms in the US, they are not the only freedoms or even necessarily the most important ones. The rest of your comment is fine though, although I would point out that one advantage to giving the rights to the states as opposed to the federal government is that it promotes diversity which is generally a good thing.
Americans believe they are "free" only because they are sold the concept, hook, line, and sinker, by the very few, rich, powerful elite that truly run things behind the scenes. Is it really any wonder why the rest of the world hates us so much? They are all collectively waiting for us to wake the fuck up and realize just how deluded we've all been.
Not that I necessarily agree or disagree, but out of curiosity what exactly is supposed to happen when we "wake the fuck up and realize just how deluded we've all been"? Will that change anything? The annoying tourists that ask stupid questions and make asinine demands will still be just as annoying and stupid, and still just as arrogant in trying to force everyone else to conform to what they want. The US will still be one of the better countries to live in, even if the populace is a little more jaded. Sure it would be nice to reduce the collective ignorance that little bit, as it's good anytime ignorance is reduced, but I don't really think it will make much of a difference one way or another. Everyone will still hate the US, and the US will still be what it is, and we'll continue the doing the same things we always have, just with the slightly bitter knowledge we're not as "free" as we thought we were, but that we're still better off than a lot of people are.
Good. Can't wait. I'm more concerned about pedestrian safety having dodged many potentially fatal encounters. Know not one but two girls whose fathers were killed walking at a light or stop sign, in fact, so I'm quite militant about anything that FORCES people to be morally responsible when they drive.
However, they were ruled unconstitutional in Minnesota precisely because the driver couldn't be recognized. Looks like that can be changed. Great.
Traffic cameras don't "FORCE" anyone to do anything, and in fact they seem to provide nothing more than a steady stream of income to the police for relatively little expenditure. Any pedestrians killed by cars were killed for one of several reasons, none of which have anything to do with traffic cameras. Either the pedestrian, or the driver wasn't paying attention (speed is a minor factor here, assuming the driver or pedestrian saw the vehicle coming the difference of 10 or 20 MPH would not appreciably change the outcome for anything faster than 30 MPH and very few roads have speeds under 30 MPH), the driver misjudged driving conditions (ice, wet roads, etc.), or there was some kind of mechanical failure (bad breaks, bald tires). That's pretty much it, barring a bridge collapsing, or chain reaction involving multiple vehicles (in which case the original crash is attributable to one of the previous issues). The fact is, anytime a pedestrian is near a road irregardless of the speed of the cars on that road, there's a risk involved and it's the responsibility of both the pedestrian and the drivers of the cars to be aware of their surroundings and take whatever precautions are necessary. In the case of pedestrians this means crossing at crosswalks preferably while traffic is stopped at a red light, and otherwise staying the hell off the road and as far from the road as possible. For drivers that means not tailgating, being aware of the condition of the road surface and upcoming road hazards or traffic devices (stop signs, lights, cross-walks, school zones, etc.), and always assuming that the guy in the next car over is a complete and utter moron which more often than not is true.
DLNA isn't downloadable content but the ability to network with a DLNA serving device (like a PC) to play content stored on that device. http://www.us.playstation.com/PS3/Features/DLNA The Xbox uses a SMB/CIFS scheme from what I've read.
I forgot to mention the PSP based remote play too.
Now while the other consoles may have some of these features, neither has them all.
True enough, although when you get both of them you've got almost all the features (and remember both can be had for less than the cost of the PS3 by itself). The 360 actually networks with Windows Media Center (if you have it), or with a plugin to Windows Media Player, which under the scenes probably does leverage some sort of SMB/CIFS scheme, although I'm not certain about the technical details. It also supports Netflix through live for streaming video, although in that case it's a subscription service and you're limited to whatever the service has available.
All of this shouldn't be taken to mean that I don't like the PS3, I really do, I just think they goofed badly when deciding on the price point and what features they needed or could cut in order to reduce that price point. If I could spare $600 I'd go out and buy one right now (and I was seriously tempted with the release of little big planet), but it's simply not in the budget at the moment.
On the one hand, it's a clear win for "Sony", even if it's a lose for SCEA, as it was arguably the nail in the coffin lid for the HD-DVD format. On the other hand had they opted to axe the Blue-Ray drive and knocked ~$300 off the retail pricetag I think we'd see a much tighter race between the PS3 and 360. With the inclusion of the Blue-Ray drive, and the $600 retail price, Sony has effectively branded the PS3 as a luxury console, and as is common with luxury items its got a much smaller install base. In terms of consoles that also carries with it the extra baggage of being less attractive to developers, which results in fewer exclusive titles, and a lot more poorly implemented ports that don't really take advantage of the full power of the hardware.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
printf("Let there be light!\n");
return 0;
}
Linux could be the hundered of branches of Christianity. However, I like Hinduism. Hinduism has many teachings, and people practise differently. Hinduism also claims Buhhdism as a subsect of Hinduism, so that opens you up to even more variation.
Actually I think that would make Linux Buddhism and Unix Hinduism.
I guess I must have my own cult cause if you follow command 1 I will personally burn you at the stake.
Thou wilst follow thy K&R style guide or be beaten to death with dangling pointers. Always remember to cuddle your else clauses, they get lonely easily.
Yes, you can write horrible unmaintainable code in any language, but that doesn't mean the language should encourage writing bad code. In C++ you really need to work to have good clean code, and it's trivially easy to write utter garbage, this is the exact opposite of the design you want for a good language. C++ was a nice first attempt at an object oriented language using C style syntax, but the goal of making the language syntactically backwards compatible instead of merely allowing it to link with C code turned it into an utter mess.
Yes it's your responsibility to not shoot yourself in the foot, but at the same time the language should not be handing you a gun covered in grease, with a hair trigger, and a barrel that randomly points in some direction.
You also left out at least one major feature that's unique to the PS3 and a major contributor to the price of the system, the blue-ray player.
So, to summarize what you get for shelling out twice the cost of a 360 and three times the cost of a Wii is... Linux that doesn't void your warrantly, a blue-ray player, and arguably better graphics which most games aren't taking advantage of right now.
The Problem is, if you're not particularly interested in Blue-Ray right now, you could take that same $600 and buy yourself a 360 AND a Wii, have money left over, and only be out a extra Linux box and a Blue-Ray player.
Once you start debating a person motivations for something you move beyond the realm of reasonable and are left with mostly speculation based on whatever evidence is available. This doesn't change the fact however that a number of laws are dependent on determining the motivations involved (E.G. first degree murder versus second degree). Suicidal people are generally rational within their own mind set, however that mindset is itself irrational. The key question then becomes exactly why and how they came to be in that state. Very few people are rational 100% of the time, and in fact someone that was would probably be considered maladjusted in some way.
You're somewhat correct in that there really isn't any such thing as really crazy versus rationally crazy, but there is more or less rational, as well as different kinds of irrationality even without factoring in chemical imbalances and other physiological issues.
The fact that you say this shows you haven't actually experienced this and are making assumptions about the kind of treatment necessary to put scratches on the disk. To be clear on some of the defective models (not all the 360s are affected, depends on which drive you happened to get) something as minor as the vibration caused by the consoles own fan causes enough movement to scratch game disks.