Slashback: Playstation, CueCat, Games 306
Maybe a bad day at the factory? An anonymous reader submits: "I'm not sure where the other fellow got his WAP11, but mine don't show the dirty output his does." See this diagram for a much more desireable outcome, if you care to play with (a little bit of) fire.
First application should be a GPL'd AIBO obedience school. gonz writes: "An update to the previous reported linux on ps2 kit has been submitted by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) to the people previously registering interest on their technology sites. The update consist of that it will be released in May on both SCEA (us) and SCEE (pal areas, including Europe and Australia) territories. A website has been set up at this place. On a side note, registering for notification when pre-ordering can apparently be done too: 'Finally, although sales haven't yet started, if you send an e-mail with the message "subscribe" to ps2linux-request@technology.scee.net we'll let you know when pre-ordering starts.'"
Lessons in obviousness. John Kozubik writes: "I have written an article describing, in a manner I have not yet seen, why the court decision by the U.S. appeals court in SF that claimed in-line linking was not fair use was inherently flawed. It is a short piece written for both the technical and the non-technical, and I think it raises a strong point concerning the arbitrary nature of browser behavior."
If they'd launch some pigs, perhaps global phones would be affordable. Guppy06 writes: "Many of you may be surprised to learn that Iridium (famous for trying to compete with cell phones and failing miserably) is still throwing up satellites (I sure was). The article on CNN tells of the technical woes of getting this particular Delta II off the pad in Vandenberg as Iridium tries to put five more spares into orbit."
Couldn't they have spayed or neutered them instead? Speaking of old hardware, Anonymous Radio Shack Employee writes: "RadioShack has sent a notice to all of its employees to destroy all CueCats (preferably with a hammer). Apparently the CueCat is among a couple of dozen items that RadioShack has given up on, and wants destroyed. The memo says that store employee's can not benefit from the items on the list. Which sucks because my store has over a hundred of these things just sitting in the back room." This week's Linux Weekly News has a great, detailed followup to the recent flap over relative OS security sparked by a post in Windows Informant.
Your own personal CueCat (Score:1, Interesting)
Irridium is still sending stuff up? why? (Score:2, Interesting)
::Cue::Cat (or however you spell it) (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:cuecat (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it's for some kind of wacky accounting purposes??? I don't know.
The ever-useful cuecat (Score:2, Interesting)
I took a few home and SNIP!
Guess I'll do something with the cuecat guts sooner or later.
- James
Digital Convergence (Score:4, Interesting)
It looks like they changed their business plan (of course) and are now *selling* the CueCat reader [crq.com] and books [crq.com] (this last one is a ROFL site. Look at the titles: Online Weight Loss Assistant, WAR ON TERROR (PHASE ONE: AFGHANISTAN & USAMA BIN LADIN), and so on...)
Re:Radio Shack (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a bank I worked for a little while ago which recieved 40 17" monitors that it had since decided it didn't want.
Since the supplier wouldn't take them back and the bank had a stupid "destroy all obsolete computer equipment" policy, the brand, spanking new monitors, still in their unopened boxes, where taken to the landfill where a large hole was dug, the monitors dumped into and run over with a bulldozer.
In the words of one of my university going friends: "The university computer department would have killed for those"
I would have taken those monitors off their hands, for free. A 40 monitor wall display would have been cool.
Re:Radio Shack (Score:3, Interesting)
Its the same with book stores. If they have a title they don't want/need. They rip off the front cover to send back, then toss the rest of the book. Every major boodstore will fire you if you try to take home the book, even without the cover.
Basically, its cheaper to do this.
Re:Your own personal CueCat (Score:5, Interesting)
Whenever an item is written off at RadioShack...say for example, you give replace someone's radio under a service plan...you are supposed to destroy the item. This is done for a couple reasons that I can think of. As an employee, you could take the item, send it to get serviced on the store's tab (Radioshack...We Service What We Sell), resell it, and the void / backout the transaction and pocket the cash while avoiding discrepencies in the inventory. Also, prevents you from other such mischief... sending it to get repaired, and keeping it for yourself.
Since they're being written off, the procedure is therefore the procedure of all written off goods -- destruction by the almighty hammer.
I still can't see how people would profit off them, except maybe selling them as some sort of bizarre techno-geek sex toy / butt plug. I think if you use it to scan your butt, it automatically brings up a link to goatse.
Re:cuecat (Score:3, Interesting)
By and by a fun gig, they had an unlimited IT budget, so they had things like $12,000 plasma video screens thoughtout the office, and IBM Intellistations as office computers.
The coolest thing was building Half Pipe, full size, to do a presentation on the X-games toys.
(CueCat) Blockbuster does the same thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
My friend works at blockbuster, and he says that periodically they'll be told to destroy videos or games that are no longer being sold.
It's worth mentioning that not one thing is ever *actually* destroyed-- that's one of the few perks of a minimum wage behind-the-counter job.
My guess on why this happens is that the original distributer (who sold the videos to Blockbuster or CueCat's to Radio Shack) made Blockbuster or Radio Shack sign a contract saying explicitly that they couldn't give extras of these items to their employees. If Radio Shack is in effect giving away CueCats to all their employees, then none of the employees are going to go out and buy new CueCats. The decision isn't in the hands of Radio Shack's management at all, but in the contract with Radio Shack's distributor.
In other words, Radio Shack doesn't care if they're destroyed or not, but they tell the employees to destroy them in order to avoid legal trouble.
Hope that helps
Linux vulnerabilites?!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a look at the LWN article again. It includes mailman (a mailing list manager), openssh (secure access to the box), proftpd (an ftp server), (l|m)icq, sendmail (a mail server), and an IMAP/POP server, just to name a few. When is the last time you saw Windows (including NT) come with utilities like those?
Let's reduce this down to a common denominator: if you only include the packages that would be required to "duplicate" windows functionality, we have:
1) the kernel
2) KDE (for "network transparent" FTP browsing, etc [FYI no bias against gnome, just picking examples])
3) XWindows for the GUI
4)Apache (if we are talking NT with IIS, or 9x with PWS, which has security issues of its own
5) a dhcp client, most likely
6) Maybe a few others
Now how many vulnerabilities do you have? Granted, Linux servers run other things, like POP/IMAP, FTP, etc, but if we're going to compare apples to apples, then let's include the security problems in POP/IMAP servers on Windows, and FTP, and DNS, and, and, and. The comparison is not fair in the least, as Linux is taking a hit for all the problems generated by auxillury packeges. On the other hand, Microsoft is only having to update (and only getting hit) for problems in Windows proper, and not for all the extra programs that you need to make Windows a fully functioning server!
Hey IBM, where's my cat dammit! (Score:2, Interesting)
Grr... I wanted to use it with ReaderWare! I mean how cool is that software?
Re:Maybe its like bagels? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:looniest destruction story I ever heard. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
When stuff is imported via cargo ship from Japan, a certain number of damaged units are expected, and so they ship extra ones in order to make up for this. On paper, it all works out in the insurance, and so everybody is happy.
However, when a shipment arrives with no damage, these 'extra' items must now be paid for by the receiver. Since some of these items are sometimes worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, when you suddenly have to pay for more than you bargained for, it hurts the balance sheet.
A friend of mine described how a government tax agent and several company officers had to witness the destruction of a perfectly working, hand-crafted, grand piano. Warehouse workers raised and dropped the two ton monster fifteen times from a forklift before it was destroyed to the point where the tax agent would allow it to be written off.
Spend a month hand crafting a top of the line musical instrument, ship it overseas, and then have it destroyed. All just to satisfy the red tape. This is so Muggle/Douglas Adams, it makes my head spin!
I almost look forward to the day when society is decimated by a comet!
-Fantastic Lad
Open Source CueCat Software (Score:2, Interesting)
If only I had known!
Ah well, I'll just look in the dumpster behind one of the radio shacks near me. I hope the employees at it are too lazy or don't have enough aggression to smash them.
Re:Radio Shack (Score:3, Interesting)
But it really is apalling that it is cheaper to destroy extremely valuable stuff, especially computer equipment, rather than give it away to some charity or other needy organiztion. Anyone have ideas on solving it that doesn't involve new legislation?
Re:Don't forget (Score:2, Interesting)
America, where stuff is so plentiful we have to throw away a lot of it before it ever gets used.
Re:Home-made barcodes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most TTF fonts I have seen for barcodes support 3 of 9 encoding as it does not have any interleaving or require a checksum. It does require a start and stop code however. (usualy a *) As a font the spacebar will place on unreadable gap in the barcode. To print the code that represents a space to the reader, an alternate translation charactor must be typed. (in my font it's an exclimation point!) 3 of 9 barcodes support the following 0-9, A-Z (uppercase only), and hyphen, period, Dollar, slash, plus, percent, and space. (yes you can barcode
*JOHN!HENRY*
A search of HP's website will get you the full extended 3 of 9 information. Another tidbit.. If you hack the Cat, all 3 of 9 is output in lower case instead of uppercase by the Cue Cat.